James, who didn’t seem to have realised he was responsible for the large black stain across Robin’s cream shirt, began again.
‘As far as I’m concerned—’
‘Not going to apologise, then?’ snarled Strike.
‘It’s not your bloody place to tell me—’
‘You’ve just thrown boiling coffee all over my partner!’
‘What?’
‘I’m fine,’ lied Robin.
Having bathed the smarting area with cold kitchen roll, she put the wad into the bin and returned to the table, her wet shirt clinging to her. Taking her jacket off the back of her chair, she pulled it back on, silently reflecting that she’d now been injured by two Edensor sons; perhaps Ed would make it a hat trick before she left the house, and smash her round the head with his walking stick.
‘I’m sorry,’ said James, taken aback. ‘I genuinely – I didn’t mean to do that…’
‘Will didn’t mean to do what he’s done, either,’ said Robin, feeling that if she had to get scalded, the least she was owed was to be able to capitalise on it. ‘He did a really stupid, careless thing, and he knows it, but he never meant to hurt anyone.’
‘I want this girl Lin found,’ said Sir Colin in a low voice, before James could respond. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about it, James. I want her found. And after that…’
He looked at Strike.
‘I’m prepared to fund another three months of investigation into Daiyu Wace’s death. If you can prove it was suspicious, that she’s not the deity they’ve turned her into, that might help Will – but if you haven’t found out anything after three months, we’ll drop it. In the meantime, please thank your office manager for looking after Will, and… we’ll keep our eyes open for that Vauxhall Corsa.’
106
It is true that there are still dividing walls on which we stand confronting one another. But the difficulties are too great. We get into straits, and this brings us to our senses. We cannot fight, and therein lies our good fortune.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Well, that’s that,’ said Robin. ‘No Corsa.’
She’d been checking her rear-view mirror far more often than usual all the way back to London, and was certain they hadn’t been followed.
‘Maybe you should ring the Edensors and say it was a false alarm?’ she suggested.
‘Whoever was in that Corsa might’ve realised we’d seen them,’ Strike replied. ‘I still think the Edensors need to keep their eyes peeled… You can charge the dry-cleaning on that shirt to the agency,’ he added. He hadn’t liked to mention it, but the BMW now smelled strongly of coffee.
‘No dry-cleaner on earth’s going to get this out,’ said Robin, ‘and the accountant wouldn’t let me charge it, anyway.’
‘Then charge it to the busi—’
‘It’s old, and it was cheap when it was new. I don’t care.’
‘I do,’ said Strike. ‘Careless arsehole.’
Robin might have reminded Strike he’d once almost broken her nose when she’d tried to stop him punching a suspect, but decided against.
They parted at the garage where Strike kept his BMW. As Robin hadn’t said anything more about what she was up to that evening, Strike was confirmed in his view that it had something to do with Murphy, and set off back to the office in an irritable mood he chose to attribute to James Edensor’s barely veiled accusation that the agency was financially exploiting his father. Robin, meanwhile, headed straight to Oxford Street, where she bought a cheap new shirt, changed in a department store bathroom, then sprayed herself liberally with a perfume tester to get rid of the coffee smell, because she had no time to go home and change before she met Prudence.
She’d called the therapist the previous evening, and Prudence, who had a dental appointment, had suggested they meet in an Italian restaurant close by the surgery. Robin found herself hyper-alert as she travelled to Kensington High Street by Tube. She’d been followed before, doing this job, and Strike’s refusal to be reassured by the Corsa’s non-appearance on their return journey to London had put her slightly on edge. At one point, she thought a large man with heavy eyebrows might be following her, but on moving aside to let him pass, he merely strode past her, muttering under his breath.
On arriving at Il Portico, Robin was pleased to find it smaller and cosier than she’d imagined, given its upmarket location; her workday clothes were entirely appropriate, even if Prudence, who was already seated, looked far more elegant in her dark blue dress.
‘I’m still numb,’ Prudence said, pointing at her left cheek as she stood to kiss Robin on both cheeks. ‘I’m a bit scared of drinking, in case it all dribbles out… you’ve lost a lot of weight, Robin,’ she added, as she sat back down.
‘Yes, well, they don’t feed you a lot in the UHC,’ said Robin, taking the opposite seat. ‘Did you have to have anything awful done at the dentist?’
‘It was supposed to be replacing an old filling, but then he found another one that needed doing,’ said Prudence, fingering the side of her face. ‘Have you ever been here before?’
‘Never.’
‘Best pasta in London,’ said Prudence, passing Robin the menu. ‘What d’you want to drink?’
‘Well, I’m not driving,’ said Robin, ‘so I’ll have a glass of Prosecco.’
Prudence asked for this while Robin perused the menu, well aware that Prudence’s good mood might be about to change. When each had given their order, she said,
‘You were probably surprised to hear from me.’
‘Well,’ said Prudence, smiling, ‘not entirely. I’ve had a sort of impression, from what Corm’s told me, that you’re the emotionally intelligent side of the partnership.’
‘Right,’ said Robin cautiously. ‘So… did you think I wanted to meet to try and make things right between you and Strike?’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Afraid not,’ said Robin. ‘I’m here to talk about Flora Brewster.’
The smile slid off Prudence’s face. As Robin had anticipated, she looked not only dismayed, but angry.
‘So he’s sent you—?’
‘He hasn’t sent me. I’m here entirely on my own account. He might well be furious, once he finds out what I’ve done.’
‘But he’s clearly worked out who—’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘He knows Torment Town’s Flora. We had an argument about it, actually. He thinks Flora ought to be testifying against the UHC, not drawing pictures of what she witnessed in there, but I told him, maybe the Pinterest stuff was her way of processing it all. I said she probably went through appalling things in there. In the end, Strike agreed not to go after her, not to pursue her, as a lead.’
‘I see,’ said Prudence slowly. ‘Well, thank you for—’
‘But I’ve changed my mind.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ repeated Robin. ‘That’s why I asked you to meet me. I want to talk to Flora.’
Prudence, as Robin had expected, now looked openly angry.
‘You can’t do this, Robin. You can’t. Do you realise what kind of position this puts me in? The only way Corm could have worked out who she was—’
‘He already knew Flora had been in the church. He had dates, knew when she left – everything. That’s how, when you rang him and accused him of badgering your client, he was able to work out who Torment Town was.’
‘It’s immaterial what you knew, before. With respect, Robin—’
‘With equal respect, Prudence, you had a choice whether or not to tell us you had a client who’d escaped the UHC, and you told us. You also had a choice as to whether or not to call Strike and accuse him of badgering your client. You were the one who enabled him to work out her identity. You can’t blame him for doing his job.’
The waiter now arrived with Robin’s Prosecco and she took a large swig.
‘I’m here because the person we were hired to extract from the UHC got out yesterday, but they’re very messed up, and probably in danger. Not just of suicide,’ she added, when Prudence made to speak. ‘We think the church might take a more active role in their death, if given the chance.’
‘Which proves,’ said Prudence, in a heated whisper, ‘that you two don’t understand what you’re meddling with. People who get out of the UHC are often delusional. They think the church, or the Drowned Prophet, is stalking them, watching them, maybe going to kill them, but it’s all paran—’
‘A masked gunman tried to break into our office on Monday. They were caught on camera. An ex-member of the church was shot through the head last year. We know for a fact they kept tabs on a mother of two, who hanged herself this week after getting a call from an anonymous number.’
For the second time that day, Robin watched the effect of this kind of information on somebody who’d never had to face the threat of violence in their daily lives.
The waiter now set down antipasti on the table between the two women. Robin, who was extremely hungry, reached for some Parma ham.
‘I’m not going to do anything that will endanger the well-being of my client,’ Prudence told Robin in a low voice. ‘So if you’ve come here wanting – I don’t know – an introduction, or confidential information on her—’
‘Maybe, subconsciously, you want her to testify,’ said Robin, and she watched the colour mount in Prudence’s face. ‘That’s why you said too much.’
‘And maybe, subconsciously, you only talked Corm out of meeting me himself, so you could—’
‘Make myself a heroine in his eyes? If we’re taking cheap shots, I might say your secondary motive for telling us you had a client who was just out of the UHC was because you wanted to increase intimacy with your new brother.’
Before Prudence could articulate the undoubtedly furious speech germinating behind her brown eyes, Robin continued,
‘There’s a child at Chapman Farm. He’s called Jacob. I don’t know his surname – it should be Wace or Pirbright, but they probably never registered his birth…’